The Battle for the Soul of Our Nation Is On

It is not about political divides and clashes, partisan wins and losses. We are engaged in “spiritual warfare." I think the President agrees.

It is important to understand what that battle for the soul of the nation really is, and what it is not. It is not just about political divides and clashes, partisan wins and losses, which is how many in politics and the media frame it. Rather, in my view, we are engaged in “spiritual warfare,” a term from the New Testament. In a recent address in Philadelphia entitled “The Battle for the Soul of the Nation,” the president lent voice to that idea as well.

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First, in a speech President Joe Biden gave in Maryland on August 22, he used the word “semi-fascism” to describe the MAGA movement led by Donald Trump. I was quite taken, but a bit confused about what the President meant by “semi-fascism.”

I looked up the word “fascism.” Here is how Merriam-Webster defines it:

“A political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition.”

I couldn’t find the phrase “semi-fascism” anywhere in the dictionary. Maybe Biden means we are on the way there?

A book I would suggest everyone read is “How Democracies Die,” by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt.  In the book, these two democracy scholars point to four key indicators of authoritarian behavior: (1) the rejection, in words or action, of the democratic rules of the game, (2) the denial of the legitimacy of political opponents, (3) toleration or encouragement of violence, and (4) a willingness to curtail civil liberties of opponents, including the media.

I recently recorded a podcast episode (my podcast is called The Soul of the Nation, by the way) with Levitsky, a Harvard professor, who convinced me that we are moving beyond “semi” now in relation to an authoritarian and racialized movement in the United States, which has now, alarmingly, become core to the base of the Republican Party. You can listen to the episode with Professor Levitsky here:

Joe Biden spoke to these issues again on September 1, at the Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia, where he laid out the warnings we all need to respond to in an address entitled “The Battle for the Soul of the Nation.” Remember, this was actually the reason Biden decided to run for President in the first place (he even put the phrase on the side of his campaign plane) and some of us were glad to see him getting back to that. 

Biden named the site where he spoke, Independence Hall, as “sacred ground,” as both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were written and debated there more than 200 years ago. I liked how he emphasized some of the original words in those documents, like “we are all created equal,” in contrast to those who would divide us across racial lines. He kept repeating three key words, “We the People,” which he said is what America is most and best about – not dominant leaders who flout the rule of law and the show complete disrespect for democratic principles and practices. 

I didn’t hear the word “semi-fascist.” Rather Biden was clear and bold in saying, “as I stand here tonight, equality and democracy are under assault.  We do ourselves no favor to pretend otherwise.” The President said he wanted to speak “plainly to the nation about the threats that we face.” He said to protect the founding principles of the nation, “Is the work of my presidency, a mission I believe in with my whole soul.” 

But, Biden said, to protect democracy requires honesty. “Too much of what’s happening in our country today is not normal.” That is an important starting point. Let's be honest and clear: Donald Trump and the movement he has unleashed is not normal – but is rooted in our real history and the worst of it.

Biden said, “Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.” Biden clarified that he didn’t mean all Republicans, but the MAGA ones who are devoted to Trump. However, the greatest danger now is that the “extremists” are in control of the Republican Party which has handed over their leadership to an autocratic, lawless, white supremacist.

The problem is not just who Donald Trump is, but what he has unleashed and continues to promote. In this moment of truth-telling, Biden said, “there is no question that the Republican Party today is dominated, driven, and intimidated by Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans, and that is a threat to this country.” And Biden acknowledged, “These are hard things.”

They are hard indeed. And some of the shallow media commentaries afterwards completely failed to admit those facts and these truths when they accused Biden of not being “unifying” in his talk. But how exactly do you unify with a movement and political party that has abandoned the rule of law, agreed to violate the Constitution, tolerates political violence and embraces white supremacy? You don’t unify with that; you must defeat it in the processes of democracy.

Biden’s truth-telling continued. “They refuse to accept the results of a free election. And they’re working right now, as I speak, in state after state to give power to decide elections in America to partisans and cronies, empowering election deniers to undermine democracy itself.”

In fact, out of the 529 Republican nominees running for office this November, a recent report found 196 who fully denied the legitimacy of the 2020 election. An additional 62 candidates raised questions around the results of the 2020 election. Only 73 have fully accepted the results of the 2020 election, the survey report found.

At the same time, too many members of the GOP “fan the flames of political violence,” which, as Biden said, represents “a threat to our personal rights, to the pursuit of justice, to the rule of law, to the very soul of this country.”

The toleration and even embrace of the angry mob violence of January 6, along with the refusal to accept the peaceful transfer of power after the 2020 election, are key markers of fascism.

Biden spoke to both, “They look at the mob that stormed the United States Capitol on January 6th — brutally attacking law enforcement — not as insurrectionists who placed a dagger to the throat of our democracy, but they look at them as patriots. And they see their MAGA failure to stop a peaceful transfer of power after the 2020 election as preparation for the 2022 and 2024 elections. They tried everything last time to nullify the votes of 81 million people.  This time, they’re determined to succeed in thwarting the will of the people.” 

But Biden also expressed his hope that “there are far more Americans — from every background and belief who reject the extreme MAGA ideology than those that accept it.”

That line got applause, but it remains to be proven true, and the upcoming midterm elections will be an important sign about the future of democracy in America. How this “inflection point” will turn out has yet to be decided. Fear leads to hate, which leads to violence. The White House is planning a Summit on Hate for September 15 called “United We Stand,” with many people working hard to make it more than a one-day Washington event. But whether this country stands up to hate will indeed be up to all of us.

Perhaps the lines from the Biden address that most addressed the direct issue of fascism were these: “MAGA Republicans have made their choice.  They embrace anger. They thrive on chaos. They live not in the light of truth but in the shadow of lies.”

Later in the speech, the President said, “History tells us that blind loyalty to a single leader and a willingness to engage in political violence is fatal to democracy.”

Biden then gave his altar call: “We can’t allow violence to be normalized in this country.  It’s wrong.  We each have to reject political violence with — with all the moral clarity and conviction this nation can muster.  Now. We can’t let the integrity of our elections be undermined, for that is a path to chaos … I will not stand by and watch the most fundamental freedom in this country — the freedom to vote and have your vote counted — and — be taken from you and the American people.”

The acceptance and integrity of elections and the complete rejection of political violence will be two of the deciding factors to the future of democracy in America.  Biden concluded, “I ran for President because I believed we were in a battle for the soul of this nation.  I still believe that to be true.  I believe the soul is the breath, the life, and the essence of who we are.  The soul is what makes us ‘us.’” 

As he should have, President Biden made these issues theological and not just political. “The soul of America is defined by the sacred proposition that all are created equal in the image of God.  That all are entitled to be treated with decency, dignity, and respect.  That all deserve justice and a shot at lives of prosperity and consequence.”

That these issues and decisions are not just political, and certainly not just partisan, but moral and even theological is crucial to name now, especially with bad theology like White Christian Nationalism undergirding and motivating the country’s dangerous movement to fascism. Biden’s reference to the Genesis 1:26 passage when God spoke to say all of humankind are created in the image (imago dei) and likeness of God was very important to see in his speech. It makes the battle to defend democracy not just a political movement, but underneath an imago dei movement. And that must be made clear if we are going to succeed against what is clearly a growing fascism in this country.

As I began to write this piece, a PBS Frontline documentary appeared on television called, “Lies, Politics, and Democracy.” I was drawn into (and suspect you will be too) to the well-documented and deeply alarming story of how Donald Trump ultimately succeeded. It detailed how the Republicans were surprised with his victories in the primaries but sure he wouldn’t win; how they accommodated his success and made him their party nominee but were sure he wouldn’t win against Clinton; how they felt they could use his base for their agendas like tax cuts and judges and that he would become more “normal”;  how many of them disagreed with Trump on a variety of issues and were even concerned but decided not to stand up against him at moments like two impeachments or, most importantly, when he said there were good people on both sides at the Charlottesville white supremacist  march. They almost all knew and believed Trump had lost the 2020 election, but gradually accommodated to his Big Lie. Many were first appalled by Jan 6 but all eventually made their way back to Mar-a-Largo to embrace the continuing leader of their party. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt were among the many interviewed for the piece, and Ziblatt concluded well when he called Trump’s success with the Republican Party, “A devil’s bargain for political ambition.” 

There was remarkable reporting on how Ted Cruz was won over, even after Trump humiliated him and insulted his wife and father. When asked why he wasn’t going to endorse Trump at the Republican convention, Cruz said to staff members, “History isn’t kind to the man who holds Mussolini’s coat.” The fellow Republicans’ early comparisons of Trump to the Italian dictator who was the first ruler in Europe to coin the word “fascist” was astounding. Of course, Cruz finally went along for the sake of his own political career and climbed into Trump’s jet to campaign for a man he had called a “pathological liar,” which became a frightening example of the problem of politicians doing anything they need to support their political self-preservation.

Former South Carolina Congressman Mark Sanford described it as “slaves to our ambitions.” It took Mike Pence, who had always been slavishly loyal to Donald Trump, to stand up and put loyalty to the Constitution over the angry demands of a tyrant to overturn the election results to keep himself in power. The impressive Frontline documentary described many “blinking red warning lights” along the way that were ignored again and again, which made this contemporary fascist actor succeed again and again; and how the established Republican leadership has ultimately played along with him.

I didn’t know that Trump once attacked the Emmy elections as fake and fraudulent when his Apprentice show didn’t win!  Some autocrats never change but are a cesspool of darkness, lies, and ugly threats to democracy. But other leaders support them for their own power. 

Another extraordinary book that will come out this fall about “the Germans who resisted Hitler,” is the story of how “a madman” was continually supported by “other men of power” who kept going along for their own personal agendas and ambitions. And that is our greatest danger today.

At his speech in Philadelphia, Joe Biden concluded, “We have never fully realized the aspirations of our founding, but every generation has opened those doors a little wider to include more people who have been excluded before. My fellow Americans, America is an idea — the most powerful idea in the history of the world.  And it beats in the hearts of the people of this country.  It beats in all of our hearts.  It unites America. It is the American creed.”

Again, that is a question that remains to be answered.

Biden called his audience to the idea of America. “And this work is the work of democracy — the work of this generation.  It is the work of our time, for all time.cWe can’t afford to let anyone sit on the sidelines.  We need everyone to do their part.  So speak up. Speak out. Get engaged.  Vote, vote, vote.  And if we all do our duty — if we do our duty in 2022 and beyond, then ages still to come will say we — all of us here — we kept the faith. We preserved democracy.  We heeded our word – we heeded not our worst instincts but our better angels.”

Every country has its better angels and worst demons – and to put this battle against fascism and for democracy in a spiritual context is, again, very important. At this moment in time, America’s worst demons have literally taken over a political party, and that is a threat to everything in a democracy as Joe Biden had the courage to point out.

Time will tell on the outcome of this historic battle and each of us has to ask how to engage this crucial time for democracy. We’re not into semi-fascism now, it's the real thing and it is always motivated by power – by a would-be strong man, who is really the weakest of men, as these tyrants always are in moral and human terms, but is supported by the silence of complicity from other power brokers. Fascism succeeds when power succumbs to lies, lawlessness, racism, hate, fear, and the threats of political violence.

Appeals to our very worst will only be defeated by our very best. By now there is no doubt: The battle for the moral, spiritual, and theological soul of the nation is on.